Can Reagan do Sound of Freedom Money?

The Reagan film is opening in theaters August 30th. There is zero chance the critics on Rotten Tomatoes will praise the film. It won’t be considered for the Oscars; everyone knows that. There is a wall between the two Americas – a very thick, impenetrable wall.

Yet, an industry, a counterculture, is growing outside of what Hollywood is now—an insular community that has decided it doesn’t want the dollars from the rest of America. Except that it actually does. They want the money because who wouldn’t? They don’t want it enough to lose their cred but they would probably not hate having a thriving box office again.

Dennis Quaid began the Ronald Reagan project at least six years ago when he appeared on The Today Show to talk about it.

At the same time, Reagan himself is a polarizing figure, especially to the LGBT community, understandably so. His inaction and sabotage on the AIDS epidemic is, for many, unforgivable. But no figure in history is all good. Even FDR has a dark past of leaving Black families out of the New Deal. Some see that as unforgivable. It is fair to see both the good and bad in our leaders from history, except, you know, Hitler.

How will the film Reagan do at the box office? I watched the rise of Sound of Freedom as someone paying attention to what was going on in “right-wing” circles, so I had already heard much about the movie before it opened. What drove its box office was the attacks that came at the film from the Left. I think people felt compelled to defend it against those attacks, but who knows?

What people on the Left, and especially in Hollywood, do not realize is how deeply they are hated and distrusted by so many in this country. That might have always been a little bit true, but it’s never been as true as it is right now.

Sound of Freedom made more money than Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Its great box office came as a surprise to many. Theaters were filling up with ordinary people in a way we haven’t seen in decades. Sure, they turn out for franchise/superhero movies, but a standard drama like that doesn’t even get made in the studio system, let alone does that well at the box office.

I’ve watched and listened to many of Dennis Quaid’s interviews. I find him to be intelligent, compassionate and fair.

He went on Joe Rogan and talked for two hours.

The best of these is his conversation with Ben Shapiro – though just posting it here or mentioning it is verboten. They talk about movies, history, Breaking Away, acting, the future of Hollywood. It’s interesting, even if you hate Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro, with over 7 million YouTube subscribers, is also in the business of making movies outside the Hollywood bubble. They will be releasing (via The Daily Wire) a version of Snow White. They also have a mockumentary arriving in theaters September 13. 

Shapiro and Quaid talk about the marvelous film Breaking Away, a movie I saw so many times as a young person I ended up taking Italian lessons. It’s without a doubt the kind of “time and place” movie Hollywood could never and would never make today. For one thing, the characters in the film would likely be MAGA-adjacent. But also, Hollywood doesn’t seem to really care much about small town America in the middle of the country. It doesn’t move the needle. The reason the film is good isn’t because of the subject matter – although that plays into it — but because of the great writing, great acting and great directing.

One of the most surprising things about Reagan is that there is a Bob Dylan song on the soundtrack, a cover of Don’t Fence Me In:

The upcoming Ronald Reagan biopic Reagan stars noted Donald Trump supporter Dennis Quaid as the title character, and the cast includes Jon Voight, Kevin Sorbo, and Creed’s Scott Stapp (as Frank Sinatra). Directed by Sean McNamara, the film also boasts a soundtrack with some noteworthy names. The biggest of them is Bob Dylan, who recorded a cover of Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In” for the closing credits. Notably, Quaid is the third cousin of the late Gene Autry, who cut a popular version of “Don’t Fence Me In” in the 1940s.

“I was honored to have Bob join our film,” Quaid said according to Spin. “We gave him the freedom to do any song he wanted to do, whether an original or a cover, and he chose ‘Don’t Fence Me In.’ That was extra special since it was a song that Gene made famous. Bob is a great lover of the American Songbook and we were delighted with the way he delivered the song. He’s a national treasure and was the perfect addition to the film. Gene and Clint were also generous with their time and Tanya has been a friend of many years and I’m thrilled to have her song as well.”

If that guy doesn’t turn up in the strangest of places!

I can’t suddenly become someone who loves Ronald Reagan. I came of age in the 1980s, after all. But as a child of the 1970s, I did live through the pendulum shift from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford to Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. I felt how America changed. For one thing, it was popular to be successful—as opposed to an activist, hippie, or bleeding heart.

This transition was explored beautifully in the Lawrence Kasdan film, The Big Chill. They called it “selling out,” how the hippies and the counterculture movement decided to become CEOs, get married, and raise families.

Reagan is credited with more or less ending the Cold War, yes it lasted that long. The fear of Communism was so big for so long then it just collapsed. Now, we have other fears that are driving power globally and domestically, though they’re not about Communism.

Those of us on the Left really did hate Reagan, but since we had no power, we could not do much about it except disconnect. So I will come clean and say I will probably not “get” Reagan the way others on the Right will because they see him so differently. I am, however, willing to keep an open mind with this and everything else.

I don’t know how Reagan will do. But I expect it will bring people out to the theaters who ordinarily wouldn’t see a Hollywood film if you paid them. I plan on seeing with an audience to see how it plays. I promise to give you my honest assessment after I do.